Just now, protesting climate activists glued their hands to the frames of two world-famous Goya paintings in the Prado museum in Madrid on Saturday. The police detained them.
A man and a woman stuck their hands to the frames of the Dressed Maya and the Naked Maya and wrote on the wall between the two works of art: +1.5 degrees Celsius.
Spain-based organization Futuro Vegetal said its members carried out the protest as part of a wave of climate protests targeting artefacts across Europe. - Last week, the UN admitted that the 1.5 degree Celsius limit (set as a goal in the Paris climate agreement) cannot be met. We must act now, the organization wrote on Twitter.
The Prado announced that the XVIII. and the XIX Two paintings made at the turn of the century were not damaged, and the graffiti was quickly painted over.
Police said two people were taken into custody. The Spanish government criticized the action of the two activists.
– This vandal act is the product of a general rejection. […] There is no reason to attack the heritage of all of us
Minister of Culture Miquel Iceta wrote on Twitter.
Ahead of the upcoming UN climate change conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt - to which 120 heads of state or government are expected - climate activists have carried out a series of similar protest actions in recent weeks.
Pea soup was poured over the painting (Photo: Stringer/ANSA/AFP)
Climate activists 'acted for love of life and art'
Also in the news this week, climate activists poured pea soup over Vincent van Gogh's The Sower, exhibited in Rome, and then glued themselves to the wall in protest against climate change. Three members of the environmental protection group called Last Generation shouted slogans against global warming, climate change and fossil energy carriers after pouring down the painting exhibited in the Palazzo Bonaparte building in Rome.
The activist group said in a statement after its latest action: the cases in question, against which they are protesting, "should be at the very top of the news channels and political agendas, instead they are only discussed in connection with scandalous activities like this".
The theme of the work that has become a target this time coincides with the group's position, according to which it is considered questionable whether the protection of art will continue in a future "where it is difficult for us to provide enough food for everyone".
Attention was also drawn to the great damage caused to Italian agriculture by this year's abnormal heat and drought. They added: "We act for the love of life and art."
Italian Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano
"Culture, which is a key part of our identity, must be protected and protected, not used as a megaphone for new protests"
said the minister.
About two weeks ago, the environmental protection group launched a similar attack on Claude Monet's Haystacks, exhibited in the Potsdam museum in Germany , by dousing it with mashed potatoes.
In a picture provided by the environmental protection group Just Stop Oil, two climate activists of the organization after pouring two cans of tomato soup on Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh's painting Sunflowers at the National Gallery in London on October 14, 2022. The two women taped their palms to the wall after the vandalism while they were taken into custody. Source: MTI/EPA/Just Stop Oil
The Van Gogh painting on loan for the exhibition in Rome, owned by the Kröller-Müller Museum in the Netherlands, was protected by glass, so it was not damaged - in contrast to the painter's work, Sunflowers, kept in the National Gallery in London, which was recently doused with tomato soup, causing minor damage .
Source: MTI
Cover photo: Futuro Vegetal activists in action (Photo Twitter/Futuro Vegetal)
